Vote for Bush? Not U.S. Jews Now in Israel

By CLYDE HABERMAN,

Published: October 14, 1992

EFRAT, Israeli-Occupied West Bank—
If the Presidential election were in the hands of Americans living in this Jewish settlement near Bethlehem, President Bush could start packing his bags right now.

It is more than a question of Mr. Bush not having a prayer here. He might not even have a single vote.

"I would vote for almost anybody but Bush," said Eve Harow, a young woman from Los Angeles who moved to Efrat four years ago and who supports Gov. Bill Clinton.

"It's not just Bush -- it's Baker," she quickly added, referring to the President's campaign strategist, former Secretary of State James A. Baker 3d. "I think Baker's got a lot of problems with us." 'Heavy-Handed Atmosphere'

"Us" are the 110,000 Jews living in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip, about 3,500 of whom have settled in Efrat, 10 miles southwest of downtown Jerusalem.

Perhaps one-third of the people here are American citizens, most of them Orthodox Jews, and it is nearly impossible to find any who do not want to punish Mr. Bush and Mr. Baker for policies viewed here as anti-Israel in general and outright hostile to settlers in particular.

"It's the entire atmosphere of the last few years," said Tammy Rubin, who came to Israel from Illinois 15 years ago. "It's been a heavy-handed atmosphere the whole time."

Outside the settlements as well, American Jews in Israel overwhelmingly say they are voting by absentee ballot against Mr. Bush. Some even wear knitted skullcaps embroidered with the message, "For Bill Clinton." For Jews, It's Pay-Back Time

At the same time -- in a microcosm of the Middle East conflict -- Palestinians with American citizenship for the most part support the President and find Mr. Clinton to be too pro-Israel. But the number of eligible voters among them is relatively small.

While Mr. Bush has gone out of his way recently to court Jewish voters -- by approving United States guarantees for $10 billion in loans sought by Israel and by pledging to preserve Israel's military edge in the Middle East -- it is a question here of too little, too late. Months of nasty relations between the Administration and the Government of Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir greatly eroded the considerable support that the President had after the Persian Gulf war.

Now it is pay-back time for the American Jews, and they are registering to cast absentee ballots in unusually large numbers.

"A lot of people have come out of the woodwork to get in touch with us, saying they've been here 20 years or more and never voted," said David Froehlich, who heads the Clinton-Gore Committee in Israel. He said that the number of American Jewish voters in Israel could rise from estimates of 25,000 in 1988 to 40,000 this year. Monolithic Voting Blocs

Even the local chairman of Republicans Abroad, who says large numbers of absentee voters here supported Mr. Bush four years ago, acknowledges that his struggle now is all uphill.

"There's no question," Menahem Swirsky said, "that to the extent that Republicans Abroad advocates voting for Bush it is not because his position on Israel is so wonderful but because it's less bad."

United States consular officials, who say they lack hard figures, estimate the overall number of American citizens in Israel to be anywhere from 100,000 to 130,000, including 10,000 or more Palestinians concentrated in a stretch of the West Bank just north of Jerusalem.

Rarely does one see groups of Americans living overseas divide themselves into almost monolithic voting blocs as they have here in this election. While almost all the Jews seem to be behind Mr. Clinton, the Arabs have aligned themselves overwhelmingly with Mr. Bush. 'He Wants Their Votes'

Not that they love the President, say Palestinians, who denounced Mr. Bush during the war against Iraq while they supported President Saddam Hussein. But they trust Mr. Clinton and the Democrats far less.

"Clinton is 100 percent for Israel," said Kamal Daoud, who owns a hotel on the Mount of Olives in East Jerusalem. "No matter what they do, he's going to say O.K. because he wants their votes."

Photo: Gov. Bill Clinton appears to be the American Presidential candidate of choice in Israel. (Reuters)